


A British thing

by TheMissingMask



Series: Driving Drabbles [3]
Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Branding, M/M, Past Abuse, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently), Project Icarus (Dirk Gently), Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:25:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14835990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMissingMask/pseuds/TheMissingMask
Summary: Dirk always wore a vest.  Under his shirt, in bed, even when being electrocuted by an electric ghost rhino.  Todd finds out why.





	A British thing

Todd had generally assumed it was a British thing.  Always wearing a vest. He had kept it on as their clothes were incinerated during the electric ghost rhino attack, and throughout the time they had known each other, it always hid just beneath his shirt. Even when the pair had taken to sleeping in the same bed after returning from Wendimoor, because by silent agreement it was better than being alone through the terror-filled nights, Dirk always kept the vest on.

Todd's theory of it being an odd quirk from across the pond was disproved in the couple of breathless moments it took for him to snake both hands up and underneath Dirk's shirt and vest while they were still exploring whatever this was between them.  He paused, feeling thin lines of raised skin beneath his fingertips.  Dirk froze immediately and went to pull back, but Todd had him up against the wall and although he was shorter, he was also, as Dirk reminded him whenever there was some form of heavy lifting needed on a case, more muscular.  It hadn't taken long for Todd to realise that Dirk said this more because he just enjoyed watching the flex of Todd’s arms when he hefted an oversized typewriter out from a dumpster or hacked a part a log in the midday sun.  Now that slight strength advantage was giving Todd the ability to manoeuvre the detective around and pull the vest up.  Dirk didn't really fight it, but looked numbly to his left and allowed the garment to be removed.

Todd found exactly what he thought he had felt beneath his fingers.  A precisely arranged pattern of very linear scars marring the entire of Dirk's back, dominated by two long, thick columns running down over the top of either shoulder blade, all the way below his waist.  Todd traced one with a finger and felt the other man shiver beneath the touch.

He brought a hand up to Dirk's shoulder to turn him around.  The vest was still clutched over the other man’s chest like a lifeline.  Carefully, Todd reached up to pull Dirk's hands away.  He met no resistance, but a resigned despair crept into the usually bright eyes.  What he found beneath was yet another scar, but different…a brand.  A symbol burned into Dirk's body underneath his left collarbone. Over his heart.  A square with a bisecting line through a circle and diamond.  The same symbol that had been on Dirk's jumpsuit when he first crawled out of the trunk in Bergsberg. This one was still raw in places, as if recently made, but at the edges it seemed as old as the rest of the scars.

Rage boiled inside Todd.  He found the overwhelming urge to hunt down and kill every one of those bastards at Blackwing, and then whatever part of the universe had decided it wanted to fuck with the man before him. Instead, he placed a hand over the brand and looked up into Dirk’s eyes.

“This is fresh?”

“They redid it.” Dirk muttered, tremor in his voice, “I’m sorry Todd.”

“You’re sorry?!”

Dirk fidgeted, avoiding the bright blue eyes searching his, “It’s hardly attractive.”

Todd glared up at him, “You’re seriously worried about that?”

Dirk hesitated, “You’re…ok with them?”

"No, Dirk, I’m not." Todd quickly corrected himself when Dirk’s face fell, “I’m not ok with what those assholes did to you.  I’m never gonna be ok with that."

He looked up from the brand into the eyes of the man who bore it, "But it doesn’t change what I feel, got that?”

Dirk nodded, smiling nervously, and dropped his head onto Todd’s shoulder.

“See? It’s not a British thing." Dirk mumbled against Todd’s skin.

Todd snorted, not bothering to ask how the hell Dirk knew he had been thinking that, instead planting a kiss on the auburn hair.

"I was starting to think it was in case you met the queen and one layer just wasn't modest enough."

"Todd, where would I meet the queen?”

Where, as it turned out two days later, was in their very own holistic detective agency, as she employed them on the case of her long lost Corgi, Rapunzal. Her Majesty was, to Todd’s amusement and Dirk’s satisfaction, not in the least bit offended by either Dirk or Todd’s lack of a vest beneath their shirts.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone meets the queen in the near future, perhaps they can ask her whether she minds shirts without vests beneath, for I have no evidence in support of either case!


End file.
